Smash Success
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: [CAT] Certain things should never see the light of day. A henchgirl's uncensored thoughts on Earth's heroes and villains is just...one of those things.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Batverse, not mine. CATverse co-owned.

Go to the official CATverse timeline website for placement in the series rather than a page and a half of timeline recap. http/ www . freewebs . com / bitemetechie / catverse . html Just get rid of the spaces, darlings.

-

"Diary Of A Henchgirl" was a smash success.

Metropolis, Gotham, Keystone City--it seemed that everyone, everywhere was reading the thing and you couldn't take two steps without running into someone who had their nose buried in it's pages.

It was only to be expected that the tabloid readers, followers of gossip columns and those fascinated with the criminal element in general would want to read it, but it was gaining both acclaim and scorn in academic circles as well.

Some scholars and psychologists heralded it as a look at the inner workings of a young, borderline criminally insane mind; while others thought it to be the worst type of fantastical popular tripe meant only for the society's lowest common denominator.

Still _others_ claimed it to be nothing more than an elaborate literary hoax.

Regardless of what the critics thought or how much the academics theorized, it had still managed to make it onto virtually every best-sellers list in the country--pushing 'The Michelangelo Cipher' out of the top spot that it had occupied for two years solid.

Thusly, it was no great surprise that it was on everyone's Must Have Christmas list.

And when I say everyone, I mean _everyone_.

Not only was it the common man who sought to read the most private thoughts contained in the newly published diary, villains and heroes alike were curious about whether or not they had been accurately depicted within it's passages.

Well, perhaps if we're being candid, it wasn't so much curiosity about how they were represented, it was most curiosity about what the anonymous author had said about them no holds barred.

Bruce Wayne, known to a _select_ few as more than just a charming billionaire playboy, was able to procure a copy of the coveted book early on, telling himself that it wasn't so much vanity that made him seek out the tome, but the desire to check it for authenticity.

It certainly wouldn't be unheard of for some ambitious fiction writer to try and break into the dog eat dog publishing world in such a manner; the masses always seemed to clamor for such things and it would definitely be a way for someone to garner national attention overnight, fraud or not…

Of course, that logical explanation fell through once he learned that the author's name had been withheld; not only from the public, but from the publishing house as well.

And someone had yet to come forward to claim responsibility for the book.

This further intrigued the detective within Bruce Wayne. Why would anyone publish their innermost thoughts, become a smash success and then _remain_ anonymous? Furthermore, what was in this little volume that kept the typical con artists from trying to declare ownership of the writing in the interests of making a quick buck?

Well…there was only one way to find out, wasn't there?

_---_

_It's not like the Bat Blaster--um...Buster--er...Blazer? Screw it, I'm horrible with names when I have a head injury...but I digress..._

_  
It's not like Al's car was in terrific shape to begin with, but I broke its will to live._

_In my defense: the Captain shouldn't have given __**me**__ the keys to the thing. I have a license to kill, not a license to drive. _

_Yes, the ring I own with '007' etched on it is what I consider to be my 'license to kill'. If it's good enough for James Bond, it's good enough for me._

_Though he was always considered a 'good guy'...so I don't know if the difference in our ethical alignments have anything to do with the validity of my license as opposed to the validity of __**his**_

_Oh...wait...he's a fictional character._

_Wow...I must've hit my head harder than I thought._

_And in conclusion: I am never driving again. Never, never, never._

_But hey, at least I'm not the one who hit Batman with the car._

_I only blew it up._

_---_

Batman's brow furrowed beneath his cowl. Who else knew about that if not those responsible for it?

Maybe this thing _was_ the genuine article.

He flipped another few pages until he spotted his name again...

_Tangled with the Bat today and I've got one thing to say--well, two things to say._

_One: OUCH._

_Two: The man is __**magnificent**_

_Now I don't usually use words like that to describe just anybody, but my God, he __**is**__ the very definition of 'Magnificent'. The way he moves, the way he fights..._

_I could easily see myself trying to become the next Batgirl if it meant learning how he does that thing he does where he flips you over his shoulder in mid-air and drops to land on his feet while you hit the pavement behind him._

_(Again, __**ouch**__. I'm gonna have bruises for __**days**_

_---_

"I don't see what's so magnificent about _you_," Wally West muttered from across the conference table inside the Watchtower, arms crossed over his chest, "I mean, I _am_ the fastest man alive, after all."

"You get a mention in here too," Wonder Woman replied lightly, flicking through her own copy.

She was relieved of it within moments and soon the man known as the Flash was flicking every page frantically.

_---_

_If you ever tell anyone about this, I'm gonna hurt you, diary (yes, I am aware of how insane it sounds for me to be threatening the continued existence of an inanimate object, but I've had a nasty blow to the head today so I'm blaming that for it __**and**__ what I'm about to say)._

_I think I've developed a small crush on the Scarlet Speedster._

_A real shame, since we're on opposite sides of the law..._

_---_

"That's kinda...cute," the Flash said with a grin before the book was plucked from his hand by the man of steel.

The stern look Superman gave Wally forced him to scrunch up his face in disgust. "Party pooper."

"I can't believe any of you are reading this trash."

"Batman wanted to see if the thing was valid or just a hoax," Wonder Woman replied easily. "He said all the dates that are specified in the book do coincide with case files of his own..."

The Flash grinned. "And you're in there _too_ you know, Big Blue."

"Big Blue?"

"That's what _she_ calls you."

_---_

_Oh my God. Superman is the most boring man on the face of the Earth. Duller than dirt and with twice the fiber. "Blah, blah, blah, you're breaking the law, blah, blah, blah, I'll never understand why girls like you turn to a life of crime, yak, yak, yak."_

_And then Big Blue shook his finger at me. He actually shook his finger at me like he was scolding a school girl._

_But it was worth putting up with the lecture to see Al konk him in the back of the head with a lead pipe._

_Granted, it didn't do much damage (or...any damage, rather), but that hollow sounding THUNK is a noise that I'm going to treasure._

_Like music, I tell you..._

_---_

Lois Lane couldn't contain the chuckle that accompanied reading that last passage. "If nothing else, she certainly had a sense of humor."

Clark Kent just grunted without looking up from his work. 

"Oh come on, Clark...I know she was a criminal, but this _is_ one of the more fascinating books that's been released of late."

"It's interesting enough, I guess," he replied with a careless shrug, "But it's far from being publishable material."

And if Lois noticed that Clark rubbed the back of his head absently when he said that, she didn't make comment about it.

"I wonder if Superman has read this yet," Lois said conversationally as she flipped a few more pages and froze.

The change didn't go unnoticed by her companion. "What?"

"Oh...I was just thinking it's a good thing the author's not around...seems like Earth's heroes aren't the only ones she wrote about…"


	2. Chapter 2

Unlike most books that circulated in Gotham city, the one that was currently popular with the general public and the heroes of Earth was _also_ popular with the criminals locked away in Arkham Asylum.

A single tattered copy of "Diary Of A Henchgirl" was making the rounds in Arkham after a guard had brought it in, only to be relieved of it by the Joker.

The book hadn't been the only thing that the orderly had been relieved of, but Joker figured the man only needed one ear _anyway_.

Joker had taken it upon himself to play Mister Rogers (and oh wasn't _that_ a pleasant thing to contemplate), and had taken to reading from the book aloud in the common room during 'rec' time.

It didn't sit very well with the rest of the populace that his readings were usually restricted to diary entries that concerned _him_ (the number that were devoted to his royal jovialness was absolutely startling) but every once in a while, another inmate got their hands on the book and flicked through it in the interests of finding out whether or not they were in the treasured tome.

Today, however, Joker wasn't letting _anyone_ have the book…much to Harley Quinn's chagrin. Still the readings gave her an excuse to snuggle up to his side and listen to him read…

"Story time, kiddies!" Joker called as he settled in on one of the couches with Harley plastered to his side like a hungry leech. "Let's start with an entry about the most fascinating person here, shall we?"

There was a collective groan as he flicked the book open, cackled for a few minutes at a joke only he understood, and then commenced reading.

_-------_

_Ok, I've always had a thing for the Joker. This is pretty much common knowledge. He __**oozes**__ unbridled power and that's really, really attractive (then again, so does Big Blue, but I absolutely can't __**stand**__ him), but Harley Quinn is another matter._

_I'm having a love/hate relationship with her right now. She's so darn __**cute**__ that it's hard to dislike her, but on the other hand, there's this tiny, green eyed little part of me that's cursing her for getting to the Joker before I could._

_How on Earth does he put up with that horrible sucked-the-helium-out-of-a-balloon voice twenty four seven? I'd wring her little neck in the first twenty minutes, I swear._

_Of course, if he ever __**did**__ off his darling hanger on...and I ever found myself out of favor with my current master..._

_I. Love. Purple._

_Gah._

_-------_

Harley made an unhappy noise and curled closer to her beloved Mister J.

"I don't sound like I sucked the helium out of a balloon, do I Puddin'?" 

Joker patted her on the head. "Oh _no_, pooh, you don't sound like you sucked the helium out of a balloon."

Harley beamed until…

"You sound like you sucked the helium out of _ten_."

Her face fell and she jerked away from Joker, turning on the couch so that her back was partially to him. She then crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. "Hmph!"

"Oh ignore her, Joker," Firefly said from across the room.

"Always _do_!" The Joker laughed again. "But since you've given me such _sage_ advice, how about we see if she had anything to say about you, old firebug, hmm?"

_-------_

_Have you ever seen a baked potato explode?_

_I have._

_Here I thought Captain was kidding about Al's cooking skills. _

_Apparently not._

_Naturally, the flamey-death-ness of the microwave made Captain extraordinarily happy, so much so that I'm rather sorry that we've put Firefly on our shit list for setting Scarecrow alight...those two would get along swimmingly._

_Of course they'd probably take six or seven (or twenty) city blocks with the force of their blinding love of fire, but--_

_Crap, Captain's practicing her flame knife dancing. I'd better go get the first aid kit._

_-------_

"Regrettable that they're six feet under and serving as worm food right now," Joker said thoughtfully. "They sound like our kind of people."

"Speak for yourself, Joker." Mister Freeze's disembodied head said from its perch on one of the tables, looking rather irritable with the turn of events that found him 'socializing' with his fellow rogues.

"What's got _you_ sore, Iceman?"

"Nothing," Freeze said a little bit too quickly.

"_Nothing_, eh?" If at all possible, the Joker's grin _grew_. "We'll just see about _that_."

_-------_

_I'm pretty sure Mister Freeze is gonna kill me the next time he sees me. The Captain and Number One might be able to get off with a sound beating, but __**I**__ am a dead woman._

_In my defense: His suit is the coolest piece of tech I've ever come across...I couldn't __**resist**__ the opportunity to fiddle with it's inner workings. All those wires and circuits just called out to me and I couldn't ignore that call..._

_Maybe if I send him a fruit basket he'll forgive me for head-napping him? Let bygones be bygones and all like that?_

_Oh yeah, that'll happen._

_When pigs fly and Batman and The Joker skip down the lane hand in hand..._

_Wait, can he even __**eat**__ fruit? Maybe he can't..._

_I should send him a slushie._

_-------_

"A _slushie_?" Poison Ivy mocked, looking up from her magazine for the first time in several minutes. "Oh, _tell me_ she sent you a slushie!"

Freeze grumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?"

He glared at the Joker with so much heat he could have conceivably melted something. "I said, she sent me a slushie _gift card_."

Uproarious laughter erupted in the common room, and Mister Freeze decided then and there that if those three women hadn't already been dead, he'd have killed them himself. In the most painful manner possible.

"Oh, I wouldn't laugh quite so hardy if I were you, Red," Joker said smartly, still recovering from his chuckles. "She wrote about you _too_."

_-------_

_I can't __**believe**__ I used to like Poison Ivy. I thought she was so cool...sticking by her ideals, protecting the Earth..._

_  
And then she had to go and attack my villainous master of choice and I had to go all berserker on her chlorophyll ass._

And then she...and _**then**__ she..._

_Never mind what she did. I don't have any hang-ups or anything, but the end result was me going mind-control-spore-y-nutters and went all She-Hulk SMASH on Al._

_Ugh. I have to make this up to Al somehow. I mean, sure she gave as good as she got, but I still feel __**really**__ guilty._

_Also really dizzy. Really, really dizzy._

_I need to go lie down._

_(Poison Ivy must die!)_

_-------_

Ivy just looked amused.

"Yes, I remember that one." She turned in her seat to stare at Edward Nygma, who was trying to make himself as small as possible against one of the walls, drowning himself in a crossword puzzle book. "Didn't they used to work for you, Nygma?"

He didn't even look up from his book, just continued scribbling furiously. "No."

"Come now, Riddles, don't be bashful! They _did_, didn't they?"

"They didn't work _for_ me."

Joker's eyes got just a tiny bit brighter. "Didn't work for you, hmmm? What _did_ they do for you then? No, never mind, don't tell me...I'm sure our authoress has something to say on the matter..."

_-------_

_I love Catwoman. Catwoman pwns all. I got to see her in action today and was reminded of just __**why**__ she's always been my favorite villainess (although, I dunno if you can really call her a 'villainess' these days...she's so much Batman's girl she might as well have it tattooed across her forehead). She's grace personified in a spiffy vinyl cat suit. I mean, have you seen the way she __**moves**__? If ever there was anyone that could __**slink**__, it's her..._

_You know, I've always wanted a spiffy vinyl cat suit..._

_Wonder if I can talk my two companions into getting all gussied up the next time we go out to commit a felony?_

_Eddie will have a heart attack if he sees the three of us all zipped into something black, slinky and Catwoman-y._

_Might be worth it __**just**__ to see the look on his face..._

_If I can talk the girls into costumes, I'm going to try and get my paws on a black leather corset. Always wanted one of those._

_Best keep Mon Capitan away from that kind of thinking though...knowing her, she'll prance up to Eddie with a 'Would you tie me up, Eddums? I mean...__**lace**__ me up."_

_And then his eyes will bulge and his head will go all explode-y._

_Is it wrong that I find that image hilarious?_

_-------_

Edward's face had gone six different shades of red while the Joker recited from the book, remembering the single occasion that the Captain, Al and Techie _had_ shown up in cat suits.

He'd spent a solid five minutes _staring_ at them before Al stepped forward and used one finger to close his gaping jaw.

After all, how many men had the fantasy of three women dressed in leather and vinyl just _falling_ all over them?

He'd been treated to that and it was something that was unlikely to be wiped out of his memory any time soon.

If only she hadn't _written_ about it, though!

"So Riddles…_did_ they get all dolled up for you?"

The shade of purple that the Riddler turned was all the confirmation that the Joker needed.

"It really _is_ a shame they're dead and gone."


	3. Chapter 3

It took him a month from the publication of Diary Of A Henchgirl to track down the woman herself, but Batman had finally found her. Lydia Mia Luisa Thompson; a.k.a. Techie, a.k.a. Marilyn Mae Bow, a.k.a. Jessica Stewart, a.k.a. Kennedy King...

He'd stopped reading the a.k.a. list when he hit ten aliases. Really, there was no point after that.

Besides, only one of those aliases mattered to him. Techie was what she'd been known as throughout her criminal career--the others seemed to be pen names and stage names.

Ironic that the one name she didn't use as a Nom De Plume was the one she'd become famous for in the literary world. Though the rest of the world knew her as 'anonymous', Techie was the identity that--if she ever returned to a life of crime--would become linked to the book that had swept the nation like a violent scholarly rash.

Either way, he tracked her down and was currently observing her on her walk down a dark alley, grocery bags in hand.

If he didn't know her history, he'd think she was just another ordinary citizen and not a former henchgirl to the master of fear.

He couldn't very well let her go on completely oblivious to his presence; he'd tracked her down to impart a warning, and impart it he would.

Stalking through the shadows behind her stealthily, he waited until she was about halfway down the alley before he put a hand on her shoulder firmly.

She screamed and dropped the paper bags, then she spun around so swiftly that her glasses flew off her face and she squinted in the darkness, putting her fists up. "Come get some! COME ON!"

Batman had to hide his amusement. It was clear she could barely see a foot in front of her face in the dark, but she was still prepared to put up one hell of a fight. Admirable, if a bit on the stupid side.

She squeaked loudly when his hand popped out of the gloom, her spectacles clasped gently by the bridge between the lenses and he waved them in front of her eyes.

They were on her face again in seconds and she was glaring into the expanse of darkness in front of her. When he stepped out of the shadows, she went from defiant to ashen so fast he thought she might faint from the amount of blood that must've vacated her face to take up residence in her chest cavity to keep that pulse racing at breakneck speed.

"Oh." She looked up at him, jaw hanging open before she gulped air like a fish out of water. "Oh fuckity fuck fuck."

"You're looking rather healthy, for a dead woman."

She recovered faster than he thought she would. "Um...thanks?"

"Are you going to go back to him, then?" He asked, cutting directly to the chase without any ceremony whatsoever.

Techie scrunched up her face, unable to lie to him. "We...we _might_."

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her his sternest disappointed parent stance. "I should take you in, you know. You _were_ a wanted criminal."

She looked up at him, alarmed, "So...why don't you?"

"I read your book."

Her expression changed to one of annoyance. "Yeah..._my book_. Just for the record, I didn't publish it, you know."

"I figured you didn't, what with the fact you were trying to keep up the pretense of being _dead_. Crane clearly did it to flush you out of hiding."

"Idiot," she muttered, "I mean...not _you_ but _him_. I respect him--which I'm pretty sure you already know...as do half the country's literate population--but this was _not_ the smartest thing he's ever done. He only thought about the fact that publishing the diary would get our attention...not that it would alert every moron who came across the book to the fact we faked our deaths. I mean..._you're_ not a moron but...I'm totally fucking this up, aren't I? Just arrest me and be done with it, huh?"

Batman's upper lip twitched. "I would, but there's an awful lot of paperwork involved with bringing someone back from the dead _just_ in order to arrest them."

Taken aback, Techie eyed the caped crusader warily, "Ok, what gives? I'm not stupid...people like you don't give people like me and my buddies breaks just because of legal technicalities. It's Hero/Villain Interaction 101. You confront me, we fight, you kick my ass, you take me to jail, I escape. Lather, rinse, repeat."

"So you _want_ me to arrest you?"

"No...but I don't want you to do me any favors that'll have to be repaid _either_," she answered quickly. "So if you've got some dirty work you want me to do for keepin' me out of jail, you've got another--"

"I don't give favors...and I don't take them, either. But I _do_ give warnings." He went from the casual to the menacing in seconds flat and he could _see_ her shrink back from him. "If you _do_ go back to him--if you give up the legitimate lifestyle you've been living--I _will_ put you in prison. And you _won't_ get out."

"I...um..." She blushed and took a sudden interest in her shoes.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What?"

"I was going to say 'Don't count on it' but I don't think you're the kind of guy I should antagonize too much, what with the fact you could hand me my spleen without blinking. Kinda fond of my internal organs...they're part of a matched set I'm a little hesitant about breaking up, so I'll just--"

Techie was treated to a rare sight then. The Batman _laughed_.

At _her_.

Oh, it wasn't a full blown Joker laugh, but it was a curt bark of laughter that was so unexpected it stunned her into silence.

The weirdness was over just as quickly as it began and Mister Serious Face was back in place as though he never left. "Just remember the warning, you'll find I'm a man of my word."

"I'll keep that in mind."

He turned, grappling gun in hand. "And do me a favor--"

"Thought you didn't ask for favors?"

He looked at her curiously before his lips twisted upwards. "Don't write any sequels."


End file.
